Skinwalker
by Sage Pagan
Summary: Things are not what they seem. Some legends aren't legends at all. A horror story based on Navajo folklore.


_I've been wanting to write a story about skinwalkers-which my Navajo friends say are very, very real-and how perfect but to post it on Oct. 31? Happy Halloween/Samhain, everyone. ~ **Sage**_

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**Skinwalker**

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Dark and cold is the road, as it is every night if you miss the two-hour bus ride home. The graveyard shift at the hospital usually doesn't cause problems—motherhood by day, work by night, that's why Michelle took the job—but tonight is rampant with Code Blues, emergency appointments and good old Navajo storytelling. By the time her patients are content the last bus to Window Rock has already rumbled out of the parking lot and disappeared.

The October wind is drier in the desert and Michelle feels her nose bleeding before she tastes the copper trickling into her cracked mouth. Shivering, she hugs the worn windbreaker closer to her body, her purse in one hand and a flashlight in the other. She's prepared for walks like these and you have to be on the reservation, as rarely anything goes as planned. She smiles, an expression that feels more like a grimace under the present circumstances, and imagines what Julia will think when she sees her mother walk in the door at three in the morning, her mouth and cheeks caked with blood. _Another bar fight, Mom? _she'd joke. _Or was it one of the patients? _

Then Michelle remembers she and her adopted daughter aren't speaking; the wind obliterates the familial fantasy. After the argument she found herself standing alone in the living room as Julia stalked out the front door, her jean jacket tucked into an armpit, the sound of angry boots scuffing long trenches in the red sand. Only Topaz, the stray German Shepherd that slept on their porch, would follow her into the dark.

_She's barely sixteen. What were you thinking, saying all those cruel things? You should have gone after her._

But Julia is an intensely private soul and to follow her is a breach of the trust and respect Michelle told her she's entitled to. Her daughter isn't like any other sulking, dramatic teenager anyway, and Michelle gladly gives her the distance she requires. Besides, she can't go very far tonight. They have only one car and this time it was Julia's uncle's to use, though it remains to be seen whether he is truly at work or at the bars. The only place her daughter can go is to the local tavern, a 30-minute hike from home if you walk fast and take the shortcut over the cliffs.

But Julia slips from Michelle's mind as the cold bites harder into her flesh. The wind is merciless and the mountains blot out the moon and stars, all but blinding Michelle if not for the flashlight. The weather is the least of her problems, however. There are uglier, eviler things afoot at this hour, and Michelle doesn't want to linger to find out what could be watching. It's best not to think about what can be hiding in the shadows, or following you home, eyes glowing like a demon.

Still, her mind wanders involuntarily to the tales her mother used to tell her, about the rabid coyotes, hidden rattlesnakes and, worse, about the _yee naaldlooshii_—skinwalkers, witches who can take on the form of animals to cast evil spells and kill humans. The most powerful skinwalkers can steal people's souls and inhabit their bodies with a single gaze.

"_Yee naaldlooshii_ are fast and agile. They do not like light. They can lure you to them by changing their voices and crying out like a loved one," Vivian used to say. When she was young the tales frightened Michelle, but eventually she dismissed them as nothing but child-rearing mechanisms to keep the naughty ones spirits-fearing and the good ones obedient.

But now, alone with the moaning wind and an impenetrable blackness above her, Michelle's heartbeat hums with fear. The blood in her veins turns to ice. She doesn't want to run—only prey runs—but she breaks out in a jog anyway, the flashlight beam swinging wildly left and right.

_Don't think about this. Just get home, call the tavern and tell Julia to stay there until morning. Marc Yazzie will understand. He's your friend. He can house Julia for one night._

Her nose is still bleeding and Michelle swipes at her face in fury, a low sob of desperation emitting from her throat when she hears footsteps on the mountain cliffs above her. Rock and sand rain down onto her head, and the Navajo woman instinctively shifts into a fighting stance. _Be you human or demon, come out and face me!_

But instead of seeing a skinwalker's glowing, ghostly eyes or hearing the howl of a witch-coyote, her teenaged daughter stumbles down from the red hills. Julia is whimpering and holding herself against the cold; she is stark naked.

"Oh, spirits," Michelle moans as she rushes for her daughter. "Julia, sweetheart, oh my God. Oh my God, what happened?"

But Julia can't speak she's crying so hard, she won't look Michelle in the face, and that's when her mother notices the bruises and scrapes along her daughter's inner thighs…

"I was so scared…I ran…" the girl hiccups, but Michelle hushes her with a fierce embrace.

Draping her windbreaker over Julia's shoulders, she turns toward home again. It's only an hour away, less if they hurry. Michelle halts, removes her boots and slips them onto her daughter's naked feet.

"It's all right," Michelle murmurs. "Let's get you home, okay? We can have some hot chocolate when we get back."

She can ask Julia the details later, once she's warm and calmed down. All Michelle is certain of now is that the people responsible will pay, with their lives if necessary. How can they hurt her beautiful daughter? Aren't they all of the same blood? Aren't Navajos supposed to protect each other in this sad, lonely place? _Curse them. Curse them all if they've touched her!_

They keep walking down the road, a cracked but straight path that leads further into the blackness, where waits a place the world seems to have forsaken; not one car passes them by, no glaring headlights to keep them momentary company. They do not even encounter the herds of cattle farmers let roam for nightly grazing. The reservation seems to hold its breath, silenced by fear, as if some dangerous predator lurks in the rocks. Or, perhaps, it is simply the deliberate night that hovers and suffocates, waiting, just above those cold mountains.

Indeed, it has become gravely quiet. The wind has vanished. There is only the steady _tchk tchk_ of Julia's footsteps on the gravel, and the staccato inhalations of uneasy breath released in frosty-white clouds. Michelle clasps her daughter's hand to warm them, but Julia's flesh is icy and will not heat. Her hair is greasy and unkempt. Not once has she looked up to see her mother, or the road. Down and side to side she keeps watch. _Tchk tchk. Tchk tchk. _

The air smells faintly of decay. Of fresh blood. Of something ancient. Otherworldly. Michelle reaches to wipe her nose, but it isn't bleeding anymore. So where is that smell coming from?

"Mom," Julia murmurs for the first time since they began to walk. "Turn the flashlight off. It'll attract attention."

"From what?"

"Just do it!"

Michelle shuts off the flashlight and the darkness swallows them whole. But she worries more about how hoarse her daughter's voice suddenly sounds. She's coming down with a cold, no doubt. She must get them home before Julia's condition worsens.

They keep walking. Michelle can see the lights of their mobile home up ahead.

"Almost there, sweetie," she says, but her daughter doesn't seem to be listening.

Beside her, Julia's breathing comes out in short, quick bursts, like a panting dog. Around them, the wind has picked up and seems to whisper. Michelle can hear _Diné_ being spoken to the sky, but something else intermingles with her Native language, something older. Something evil. Fear traces cold patterns down her spine, raises the hair on her arms. Is that growling Michelle hears?

Slowly, Julia lifts her head.

Folktale becomes reality. A snarl unfurls from black lips caked with dried blood. A mother's cry of horror.

What is left of her daughter's face contorts and rips to reveal a feral snout, but the mouth remains eerily human—it smiles. Saliva drips from knife-like teeth and dribbles to the ground. Eyes glow yellow like a coyote's. Claws sprout from fingernails that tear the windbreaker from her body to reveal a bloody, rotting pelt wrapped about her naked form—that of Topaz, the unlucky German Shepherd who had followed Julia into the night.

Michelle screams, but instinct rushes in and flings her away. She's weeping now, weeping and running and stumbling in her bare feet; the _yee naaldlooshii_ wears her shoes and wears her jacket, and very soon it will wear her skin. The wind is terrible and it toys with her, it slaps her backwards, and Michelle realizes it is no wind but evil's breath itself, come to torment her on this darkest of nights.

In seconds the _yee naaldlooshii_ slashes her claws into Michelle's back and hurls her to the ground, its still-human hands closing around her throat. She closes her eyes but the witch cackles and mutters a spell, and Michelle is forced to stare into those soulless, devastating irises.

The last thing she hears are its shrieks in animal tongues, right before it sinks its fangs into her throat.

In the desert, a war cry is heard, a bloody, gurgling scream of triumph.

Then, a palpable silence.

A dark road.

An empty house.

The steady sound of boots.

_Tchk tchk. Tchk tchk._


End file.
